Elsewhere

Search

Complete MITTWOCH on YouTube

2012 was, for small, cherubic, mewling reasons, not a year in which I saw very much live music at all. A top ten list would be a bit of a joke, since it would have to include the odd school concert just to make up the numbers.

However, I was fortunate that among the few productions of live music for which I did manage to scrub the baby porridge off myself and get out of the house was a genuine game changer: the first complete production of Stockhausen’s MITTWOCH.

Since I wrote my rather effusive review back in August, I have discovered that audio of the entire opera (four scenes, plus a greeting and a farewell) is available on YouTube. Some of that audio even comes with video: scene 4, Michaelion, can be watched complete in its premier performance (1998) by the Sudfunk Chor, Stuttgart. A 20-minute clip of the same scene – the one that bothered most critics (including me) – from the Birmingham Opera production can also be found.

Here, then, are all six parts in order, interspersed with a few of those video extracts recorded by members of the audience in Birmingham, included for comparison and/or context.

(With thanks to Alex Ross, who first drew my attention to the video of Andrew Connington’s aquatic tromboning.)